


have you got color in your cheeks

by IvyOnTheHolodeck



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Ancient Martian Technology, Mild Sexual Content, Not Season/Series 02 Compliant, Other, Post-Season/Series 01, Temporary Character Death, i really need to stop writing ghost (1990) aus, no beta we die like Hyperion mayors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-04 09:13:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21195224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvyOnTheHolodeck/pseuds/IvyOnTheHolodeck
Summary: Hyperion City. Where dreams and detectives go to die. Where the hissing wind off the sands rattles beer bottles in empty alleyways and never quite lets you rest.Juno always used to say he'd sleep when he was dead. Turns out, he doesn't get that luxury.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marvelruinedmyspirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvelruinedmyspirit/gifts).

> I promised Marvelruinedmyspirit that I'd start posting my Penumbra WIPs once she actually listened to the bloody podcast. So dearest, this one's for you. ❤️
> 
> See end notes for content warnings.

"Stop!"

Juno whips around another badly lit corner, clipping the wall with his shoulder. Goddamn depth perception. The corridor dead-ends into a padlocked door. He shoots the lock. No effect. 

A pair of goons charge up behind him, blasters raised. "Freeze!"

"Great, a welcoming committee. Don't suppose you brought refreshments, I'm famished."

"Put your hands up."

"I suppose I am a single lady." No recognition whatsoever. Juno wishes he could find some better cultured villains. 

He could shoot one of the guards in time, but not both, and he doesn't like the look of the sidearms they're carrying. Guns that big don't come with stun settings. 

A single light flickers overhead. There. Juno slowly raises his arms, blaster in one hand. 

"Drop the weapon."

Juno snorts. "Even I'm smarter than that." He pulls the trigger, and the lightbulb explodes. The room goes dark. 

Juno dives past the guards as shots shred the air where he was standing. He rolls to his feet and shoots twice. Two thuds tell him his marksmanship is improving. It makes sense, he's always had to work without depth perception in the dark. 

Juno takes off down the hall. He needs an exit. Green's thugs will come looking for their pals soon, and he doesn't want to be here to meet them. He clatters down a stairwell, flings open the first floor door, and freezes.

Two pairs of surprised gazes meet his. One belongs to Lucius Green, the last man he wanted to see. The other belongs to the man sitting on Lucius Green's lap. 

Shit. 

Remember how he just said Green was the last man he wanted to see? Scratch that. Green is the second to last man he wanted to see. Peter Nureyev, perched on Green's lap with smeared lipstick, is the last person he wants to see here. 

Based on the look on Nureyev's face, the feeling is mutual.

"Sorry to interrupt," Juno says. "I'll just-" He tries to back out of the room, but the goons have finally caught up with him. One rips his blaster out of his hand while the other shoves him forward. Juno stumbles to his knees. 

He moves to stand, but Green makes a scolding noise. "Ah, ah - not so hasty, little lady." He accepts Juno's blaster from one of the guards. "I'd rather you stay down here where we can see you eye to eye. Or rather, eye to eyes. Or really, since Leonard's here, eye to eyes to eyes."

Rita's briefing hadn't mentioned that Green was a doofus. Juno makes a note to ask her for reviews of his opponents' abilities to banter. Not much point waking up half an hour early to practice one-liners in the mirror if this is his audience.

"So," Juno says to Nureyev, "you're back. I see your taste in dates hasn't improved."

"Nor your timing."

Juno can feel Green's gaze sweeping over him like a greasy rag. He resists the urge to rub his arms. He hasn't felt this unclean since - well, since his involuntary swim in the sewers Tuesday. 

"Leonard," Green says, "do you know the lady?"

"He's an ex," Nureyev says with a sniff. "I thought I'd gotten rid of him. No such luck, it would seem."

Doesn't that smart like a kick to the teeth. Juno gives the carpet a small, bitter smile. "And here I was thinking I was your good luck charm."

"Do keep up, Juno," Nureyev says scathingly. "Cowardice is not a vice I take lightly."

Juno's shoulders hitch inwards, absorbing the strike. "Yeah," he gets out. "That's. That's fair."

Nureyev pouts at Green. "I want him thrown out. He's upsetting me. See, my heart rate is simply unacceptable." He presses Green's fingers against the long column of his throat.

A memory surfaces, of Nureyev gasping, his arched neck glowing pearlescent against the pillows in - nope, nope, none of that. Juno buries his nails in his palms. Focus, Steel. 

"I can't throw him out," Green objects, "we don't even know why he's here. That would be irresponsible, Leonard."

Why the hell had Rita acted so nervous when Juno said he was casing Green's place today? The man looks like an asparagus stalk someone dropped behind the counter and left for three weeks. 

"I don't care why he's here," Nureyev says, burying his face in Green's collar, "just make him go away."

"Well, I certainly don't like intruders. It's lucky the lady's easy on the eyes - on the eye? No offense, lady intruder ma'am."

"None taken," Juno says, channeling every bit of his incredulity into his voice. He can't bring himself to be jealous, even though only one of Nureyev's hands is visible at the moment, and goddamn, this is his life now, watching the man he loves fingerfuck a piece of moldy asparagus. Green twitches and darts a glance at Nureyev. Christ. 

"What I was, uh, saying, was that lady intruder here is pretty easy on the one or more eyes, and I might be inclined to be, you know, more generous if the three of us..." Green wiggles his eyebrows and makes a gesture with his free hand that looks like shelling corn but almost certainly means sex. His other hand curls loosely around Juno's blaster. 

"Thanks but I'd rather die," Juno says. "No offense."

"Suit yourself," Green says, and shoots him. 

The laser hits his chest dead center. Juno crumples to the floor. 

His nerves sear avenues of pain through his limbs. Teeth gritted, he forces himself off the ground, right fist pressed to his wound. Like hell is he going to face this joke of a mobster lying on the floor. 

As though through a tunnel, he hears Nureyev say, voice shaking, "You didn't need to do that."

"I gave him a choice, and he chose dead wrong. Heh, get it, dead wrong? Do you get it? Because he's-"

"I understand the joke, Lucius."

"But you're not laughing."

Juno tilts his head back, and oh, Nureyev's kneeling right in front of him, that's nice. And huh, Juno recognizes that expression, that's how Nureyev looked right after he stabbed Mag, weird. When did the room get so spinny?

"If I vomit on your upholstery, you can't legally sue me," Juno says, his voice cracking. "I checked after the last time. You break the detective, you don't send him the bills for damages done by his bodily fluids."

Everyone ignores him. Wonderful. 

Without looking at him, Nureyev reaches past Juno. Juno grimaces. "I get that I'm no one's favorite person right now - or ever, so hey, keeping expectations low - but could someone give me a hand up? What did he call you, Leonard? Or one of you bodybuilders?" He turns to the guards, and - what. What.

That thing Nureyev was reaching for? Turns out it was Juno's body. Which is lying on the floor next to him. Stock still. 

Not breathing.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, the feedback on this fic has been amazing! I'm delighted to write more, especially now that I have the plot laid out. Hope you enjoy chapter two, which has angst and RITA!

Juno is no stranger to awkward social situations. Usually he's the cause of them. Puck used to joke that if Juno killed the mood in an all-hands meeting one more time, Captain Hijikata would sic the homicide squad on him.

Even Juno, though, doesn't know how to address the group of mobsters who just murdered him. Nor his ex, his supposedly uncaring ex, who is currently cradling his corpse's hand with a blank expression while Green grows increasingly irritated.

"So..." Juno says. "Anyone able to see me? Or hear me? At all?" Nothing. "Seriously, this is the afterlife? I've still got to see your ugly mugs, but you can't hear me complain? There's a massive power imbalance here."

"I should check his pulse," Nureyev says, sounding distant.

"Oh, he's quite dead, Leonard. This blaster is top of the line. Real bruiser of a beastie. Leonard, I said you didn't need to check his pulse. Oh, fine, I suppose the blaster might be faulty... Leonard, you can let go of the lady's hand now. Leonard."

"You know, Nureyev," Juno says, "I'd be a lot more touched by this tender moment if you hadn't just got me killed. Gotta give you credit, though, you're my first ex to succeed."

"Leonard, come on, you told me that marble floor was murder on your knees." Receiving no response, Green twirls a curl of his emerald hair and sticks out his lower lip. "I'm beginning to feel quite put out."

"Unacceptable," Nureyev murmurs.

"What was that, Leonard?"

Nureyev clears his throat. "Ah, I was saying it wasn't acceptable that you be bothered. Why not try that new bubble bath Elle recommended? I'll join you in a bit."

Juno does _ not _want to be around for that. "I'll just see myself out then, if you folks don't mind. What's that? No objections? Not even a glance my way? Great, glad we're in agreement. Bye." Fantastic. Instead of being depressed and jaded, now he's depressed, jaded, and completely irrelevant.

He has to squeeze past the musclebound guards at the door, whose dull expressions make him wonder if Green already harvested their brains. One leans over while Juno tries to sneak by him, which is how Juno learns that he can pass straight through people. It feels disgusting, like the guard spit in his face and then somehow inside his face. He gags. No one notices.

Remember those freezers full of contraband organs Juno had been searching the bowels of Green's stronghold for? Turns out they're lining the front hall. If Juno still had blood, it would boil at the sight. Green isn't even trying to hide his operation - an operation to which Juno's body will probably be fed. He just hopes they don't overcharge whichever poor bastard buys his liver, that thing was bound to give out any day now.

The trudge back to his office is a blur of neon lights, wailing cars, and flurries of burning sand that blow straight through his chest and leave him choking. It's early enough that people still crowd the street corners, vying for entrance to nightclubs and grocery outlets and whatever the hell "Rolf's Roachery" is selling. Maybe Juno's better off not knowing. He keeps his head down and sticks to the curb. The air hangs heavy with the stench of melting asphalt.

There's a dreamlike quality to the night, almost nostalgic. His mind itches with memories of when he'd sneak out of the house to walk Ben home from dance practice, and it felt like they were the only two in the entire world.

He makes it back to the office, shadowed by looming apartment blocks on every side. He tries the handle out of habit and shudders as his fingers pass straight through it. Gritting his teeth, he shuts his eyes and strides forward. A brief sensation of sludge coats his body - he's never going to get used to that - and he's inside his darkened reception area.

He can almost believe it's just another night. No one waiting for him at his pigsty of an apartment, so he might as well stay over at the office, working or drinking until he blacks out. He's got a plush pink pillow stuffed in his safe that Rita gave him after she caught him sprawled unconscious across his desk for the third (tenth? hundredth?) time.

He doesn't know if he's even capable of sleep now. After a brief mishap, in which he tries to lean against the window and falls through it, he ends up slouched on the floor watching the sunrise.

It's a hell of a view.

It's been ages since Juno just sat and observed. Can't see much with all the buildings, but he can imagine it boiling red over the horizon, just as malicious and beautiful as when he used to watch it from the roof of Oldtown High, or later from Diamond's seventh-floor apartment window. Everyone spends so much time waiting for the sun to appear, only to look away when it arrives. But hey, for once Juno doesn't have to worry about damaging the one good eye he has left.

Rita's scheduled to come in at eight, which means her cuckoo clock is shrilling eleven by the time she bursts in, a cloud of snack dust swirling in her wake. Their robotic vacuum trills in delight and gets to work cleaning the floorboard.

Before noon, huh. And without her nose deep in a stream on her comms. She must really be worried about his investigation of Green.

"In here," Juno calls, knowing it's pointless. "Lady by the window, paging Rita, do you copy."

Not a twitch, not a glance. It's hopeless. Rita sticks her head into his office, her brown knitting when she finds it empty. She types into her comms. The call goes straight to voicemail - "Hi, this is Juno Steel. I can't respond right now, probably because I'm getting the shit kicked out of me again on someone else's cred. Leave a message or just call my secretary, she's the brains anyway."

"Mistah Steel, you're overdue for your check-in. Maybe you're just busy or runnin' real fast or you hafta seduce a cute person for the case or whatever, but Green's got a mean streak so let me know if you need me." Rita cuts the call and checks again for new messages. Her lower lip wobbles.

Juno's going to be sick. Is this what he's been doing to her all these years? Disappearing off without a word or thought to how she'd feel if he turned up floating face-down in the Halcyon Park Fountain. He's a terrible boss and a bad friend. Maybe Rita's better off with him gone for good.

"Now don't you worry, Miss Rita," Rita says to herself, wiping her eyes and powering up her monitor. "Mistah Steel's a real tough lady, and no nasty gut stealers are gonna steal _ his _ guts. Maybe the boss ain't been feelin' so hot lately but he did just lose an eye and that's got to be at least as bad as when they canceled 'Reigning Cats and Dogs: The Day Pets Took Over' and ooo if that didn't just make me mad! But Mistah Steel ain't gotta worry because _ Rita _ is on the case. And sure Green's mansion ain't got security cameras or even normal cameras - which is real weird when you think about it 'cause Green's supposed to be in love with how he looks - but that's no stop for _ Rita! _ Couple of heat sensors, or - no! One of them DNA scanners from the war, like that pretty journalist said in the history stream, that got tested in Oldtown before being decommissioned for human rights concerns."

Juno goes cold. He can't imagine how Rita would react to tracking him across town only to find his body being butchered for profit. No one deserves that. If he'd walked in on Benten's body, instead of running into his mother first - 

"Only the journalist thought it was more how the chief engineer didn't want to be tracked when she visited her mistresses, especially the one who was a spy from the Outer Rim, and - no! Focus, Rita. DNA scanners. Few decades of dust and Faraday cages ain't getting in my way."

"Rita, goddamnit, listen to me. You're going to find me in a meat locker."

"Define my vector space, take the Laplace transform," she mutters, typing furiously, "ooo, add the theme song from 'Are You Smarter Than a Sewer Rabbit!'"

"Please, Rita, I'm standing right next to you."

"Oh, that's a nasty little firewall so I'll just - there! Oh, ain't that just the cutest operating system you've ever seen! Now play nice so we can oochy-scoochy those rusty old joints."

"You have to hear me, goddamnit-"

"Power up the fuel cells, reroute fuel through some degraded conduits, open another tube of Escargogurt, and oh wouldn't Franny love this, it'd be perfect for tracking down stream stars so we could just happen to run into them at the ice cream store-"

"Rita, I'm _ right here- _"

"Open the sunroof, calibrate scanners, and-"

"_Listen to me!_" Juno slams his fists down on her desk and topples straight through it, like a drunk millionaire stepping off the side of their floating mansion. He hits the ground, and something rattles.

Something rattles.

There - a little rocking fragment next to the wall, nearly hidden in a drift of cheese dust and sugar. It has to be a coincidence - Rita kicking her feet, maybe - but he reaches out anyway. His fingers close around the fragment. Solid.

Juno scrambles out from under the table and holds the thing up to the light. It's a pottery shard, tapering to a jagged point. His grip on the thing is squishy, like trying to hold together a bar of soap that's been sitting in a puddle for days. He doesn't care. This is the closest to hope he's felt since he looked down the barrel of his own blaster - hell, since the Purus Egg powered down and left him without a scratch.

He raps the shard against the table to get Rita's attention. She glances over and does a double-take. Concentrating as hard as he can, Juno digs the tip of the shard into the table and writes.

Rita stares as Juno painstakingly carves YOU'RE FIRED into the wood. He's exhausted by the time he's done. Rita traces a finger along the scratches, her wide eyes darting around the office. "Boss?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Shout-out to the incomparable Marvelruinedmyspirit, who is my inspiration, my joy, and the one who suggested the "sewer rabbit" joke!)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finals are over post Juno Steel

"Boss? Where are you?"

Juno wiggles his statue fragment. Rita's eyes get huge. "Gee Mistah Steel, when'd you get so small? And, uh, rock-y? Oh! Is this a new kind of communicator?" She leans in close to his shard and hollers,  _ "I'm listenin', Mistah Steel." _

"Rita, geez." If it had been a communicator, he would have burst an eardrum. Juno holds up the shard so she can see it better. He might not be good with computers, but he's pretty sure you can't mistake a chunk of clay for one. 

Rita makes a noise high enough to be picked up on police scanners. "The rock's  _ alive _ ! Just like in 'Quandary in the Quarry,' where Princess Jewel's had a pet rock ever since she was a little girl but then she finds out the rock is  _ secretly Princess Granite _ under a  _ spell _ and Granite's in  _ love _ with her (though only once she grows up, not when she's a little kid, that would be weird) but  _ then!  _ Jewel finds out that her  _ mother _ is actually a vampirate and-"

Juno waves the shard in front of Rita's face to get her attention. Her gaze snaps back to it. "Right! Focus, Rita. The boss needs you. Boss, can you hear me? If you can hear me, tap on my desk." Juno raps his shard against the desk. Rita squeals. "Ooo, it's just like secret communication! This is real excitin', boss. Now, words. I can't just let you go carving up my desk, looks real unprofessional."

"Oh, right, you file my cases based on how famous and pretty the perps are, but  _ I'm _ the one who's unprofessional."

"But if all you can move is a shiny rock...  _ That's it! _ " Rita whips out her comms and punches in a number. It rings a couple times and connects. 

From the other end, a voice says, "Rita, I'm so glad you called, I was just having the most horrible dream."

As if this weren't enough of a shitshow already. Juno groans. "Come on, in what universe would it help to call-"

"Mistah Mercury!" Rita yells. "It's an emergency, you gotta help me save the day."

"Gee, I dunno, I can hardly seem to save up a few bucks for a drink. Or a mattress. It's not that I don't like sleeping in Wilco's old dog bed, but my back-"

"Mistah Mercury, there's no time to waste on beds. Have you still got your squeegee board?"

"My what?"

"You know, the thing we used at your Valentine's Day seance. Spookiest day is the year, you said. The squeegee board."

Juno sighs. "It's called a weggy board, Rita."

"Oh that! I threw it under my bed after it told me I shouldn't wear socks with sandals."

Yeah, so that might have been Juno pushing the planchette around. He's a detective, he fights crime. Sometimes that includes crimes against fashion.

"Well Mistah Mercury I need you to bring it to the office right away."

"Oh! Is this about a case? Is there a ghost?"

"It's Mistah Steel."

"Juno's ghosting you too? Oh, that's a relief, I thought he was just mad at me."

"I don't return a text  _ one time, _ Mercury-"

"I'll be right over," Mick promises. 

And so they wait. It's as boring as the weeks when Juno is between cases, with the added frustration of not being able to pour himself a drink or growl at Rita to turn off her streams. No halfhearted games of Jovian solitaire, no angsty music he'd tune his comms to while Rita was deep in one of her marathons. Certainly no window of his office to crack open so that strains of mournful breakup songs would be floating out in case a particular master thief were to pass by. Not, of course, that Juno would ever engineer such a pathetic scene.

Rita clicks through the morning's headlines, her leg bouncing impatiently. Some celebrity made off with another's favorite vase (or possibly face? The reporter says it too fast to tell.) Real estate prices are rising faster than wages, and Mayor Peyrera has promised to do jack shit to help. Dark Matters are rumored to have raided some poor bastard's house last night. Fans are going feral for Cecil Kanagawa's newest outfit. Just another day in the most beautiful place in the galaxy. Takes a lot more than the loss of one detective to slow Hyperion down. 

Outside there's a noise like five cats dying horribly. Trust Mick's motorbike to announce him long before he arrives. Juno listens, resigned, as Mick clatters up the fire escape, then back down when he remembers their office is on the first floor. He bursts in. "Rita!"

"Mistah Mercury!"

Mick yanks a crumpled cardboard sheet from under his arm and presses it into Rita's hand. "I brought candles too, just in case we need them for the ceremony, and also some dynamite in case we need to light the candles, only I heard a really loud noise while I was riding so I think I might have dropped the dynamite."

This is Juno's best friend. What does that say about him?

"There ain't no time for candles, Mistah Mercury. The boss has been-" she peeks through the Venusian blinds to make sure no one's listening- "cursed!"

And this is Juno's other best friend. Maybe this is why Sasha used to roll her eyes and mutter around playing hot potato with their one mutual brain cell. 

"Great galloping galaxies!" Mick gasps. "Cursed!"

"I'll show you. He's turned into a rock."

"Really haven't," Juno puts in as Rita and Mick clear a patch on the office floor to lay out the weggy board. They sit cross-legged on either side, and Rita places the shard of clay in the center with great reverence. 

For a moment, Juno considers not engaging. Would it hurt Rita more for him to be half here, gone but lingering like the stale scent of cigarettes? Dammit, though, she deserves to hear what happened. Feeling ridiculous, Juno squats next to the board and moves the shard. Mick screams, but Rita shushes him. 

HI, Juno traces out, then pauses. The hell is he supposed to say?

"Jay-jay, is that really you?"

YEAH.

"Mighty maladjusted marmosets," Mick says, looking at Rita in horror. "He really has been cursed!"

NO.

"Boss," Rita says, "I know you don't go in for all that superstitious stuff and I respect a bad hair day as much as the next lady but you really ain't looking like yourself right now."

NOT CURSED, Juno spells with the shard. Might as well get this over with. I GOT SHOT. Rita's hands fly up to cover her mouth. Juno grits his teeth and continues. I AM A GHOST.

"Don't kid us, Juno," Mick says, sounding nervous. "It's like you always said when we were kids. Don't believe the scary stories, Mick. There's no such thing as ghosts, there's no such thing as werewolves, and there's no such thing as antivaxxers."

NOT THE FIRST TIME I TURNED OUT TO BE WRONG, MERCURY. THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE USED TO IT BY NOW.

"Prove it," Mick demands. 

WHEN YOU WERE TEN YOU WERE OUT OF SCHOOL FOR TWO WEEKS. YOU SAID YOU HAD BEEN JOYRIDING AROUND OLYMPUS MONS. YOU HAD ACTUALLY BEEN HOSPITALIZED FOR DRINKING NAIL POLISH AND ACETONE.

"Jay, c'mon, maybe I should have realized the nail polish wasn't liquor, but then I thought hey, I don't want to be poisoned. If acetone gets nail polish off my nails, why not off my stomach lining?" His eyes widen. "Wait, Juno's the only one who knew about that."

YEP.

"So you're actually," he swallows, "a ghost?"

YEP.

"Aw man, this is even worse than my scary vegetable dream! Rita, what are we gonna do?" Mick looks across the board, and his voice softens. "Rita?"

The small, choked-off sob from Rita's side of the board just about tears Juno in half. He can't bear to look at her. Mick's been through this before, first with Annie, then with Benten. Rita - Rita hasn't. 

"If this were a stream," Rita says after a moment, her voice thick. "This'd be where we get a big plot twist. Something that changes the game so the beautiful protagonist and her friends could swoop in and save everyone."

Juno knows the feeling. The desire for one, just one lucky break. The search for some sense of order in this fucked up universe. The instinct to howl at the clouds for an explanation of why, why he had to keep losing the people he loves, the few glimmers of hope he's chased through a sandstorm bent on picking his bones clean. A plot twist, sure. As if real life ever worked out like in - 

Rita's comms ring.

She and Mick make eye contact for a split second before she scrambles to her feet to grab them. She has to jab the screen a couple times - sweaty fingers - to get it to connect. "Hello?"

"There's a car waiting for you outside," says a clipped voice. 

"Sasha?" Mick asks.

A beat. "Well. I suppose two verifications are better than one. Mick, I need you to get into the car with Rita. Don't ask any questions, and don't talk to the driver."

"That ain't gonna work, Agent Wire," Rita says. "I got too much going on right now to drop everything 'cause some spooky lady told me to."

"I'm afraid you don't have a choice. Hyperion law dictates that all citizens comply with the requests of Dark Matters, and this order comes straight from the top."

"Listen," says Rita, narrowing her eyes, "I don't care how much power you have or how hot your voice is or how many planetwide quarantines you've instituted-"

"That information is extremely classified, how-"

"But I ain't goin'  _ nowhere _ until you tell me why."

A sigh echoes over the speakers. "It would be kinder to do this in person."

"Agent Wire, nothin' in your personnel file makes it seem like you care about bein' kind."

"First of all, that comment requires me to register you as a Level Eight threat. And second, if you must know, I've sent my chauffeur to bring you to Dark Matters HQ. As an active agent, I am not allowed to provide evidence in cases I am myself investigating, which is why I need you both to come in and identify the body of Juno Steel."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finally escaped my writer's block! You would not beLIEVE the number of times I've rewritten this chapter. Now that I know where I want the rest of the story to go, hopefully my posting will speed up significantly.
> 
> All my love to Marvelruinedmyspirit, who supported me through many, many, many false starts and frustrations. Thank you, my forever flower.

Of all the potential inconveniences of being a ghost, transportation wasn't one Juno would have considered. It occurs to him, though - if he passes through walls and desks and people, why would the seat of a car be any different? And sure enough, when he squeezes into the back seat of the Dark Matters limo after Mick Mercury, he immediately falls through the car floor. 

Shit. No way is he abandoning Rita and Mick to go identify his body without him. More importantly, he needs to figure out how Sasha got involved. That headline Rita had read about Dark Matters raiding a mansion last night - was that about Green? If so, it's a hell of a coincidence, and Juno doesn't trust coincidences. 

So he can't afford to be left behind, and the only thing he's capable of making contact with is some stupid shard of glossy red pottery, which Rita has tucked into the cup holder next to her seat. Being dead sucks. Glad no one can watch the last scraps of his dignity die, Juno wraps his hands around the shard and holds on for all he's worth. 

The car's rocket boosters kick in with a subsonic roar, and it rises off the ground, Juno dangling beneath. His arms itch like mad where they pass through the undercarriage. The ground shoots away from them. Juno squeezes his eyes shut, his stomach roiling. He tells himself he has nothing to fear - can't be killed twice, probably - but the lizard part of his brain is busy screaming things like TOO HIGH and SHIT and WHY DIDN'T I BECOME A BARISTA. It doesn't help that after they hit cruising altitude the car shimmers and vanishes from sight. If he squints, Juno can see the pixels of the holographic empty sky the car is projecting around itself. At a glance, though, it looks like he's dangling unsupported hundreds of feet off the ground with no upper arms. Which, okay, it's not the first time that's happened but he's never getting used to it. 

The car bursts through the top of Hyperion's dome with a crackle. They soar out over the tan sands, the car's nose tipping skyward as it surges through the upper layers of the atmosphere. Juno sets his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. 

Are they going into space? The limo hardly seems equipped for it, but there's nothing in sight for them to -

Between breaths, Juno goes from staring down the void to hurtling into the maw of a darkened hanger. Limos with sleek black wings zip past as the cavern yawns deep around them, backlit with strips of glowing blue lights. This entire facility must be shielded the same as the car he's hanging from.

Dark Matters HQ. Juno had thought he'd never live to see it - and hey, he'd been right.

Their car banks hard and aims itself toward an alcove. Juno swings his legs back for momentum and leaps into the slot ahead of the car, tumbling to the floor in an undignified sprawl. He dusts himself off as Rita and Mick disembark, Mick looking faintly green. "I'm just saying that flight isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sure you get a view, but what if your car decompresses while you're leaving orbit? It just doesn't seem worth it. Hey, what if we had a transportation system that went below ground?"

"Ain't that just a subway?"

"Yeah! But get this. You know how the electricity goes out any time the mayor gets in a fight with the power company? These cars would never get stuck because instead of engines, they'd be pulled by those ancient Earth pack animals."

"You mean like horses?"

"No, centaurs!"

"An interesting idea, Mick," Sasha says, appearing out of the shadows. She dismisses the driver with a click of her fingers. Under the black light, the lettering on her engraved name tag fluoresces faintly white. "Come with me. We'll talk in private."

"Yeah," says Juno, "heaven forbid someone find out you have friends, Sasha, you've got a reputation at stake." 

"Here." Sasha pulls two pairs of sunglasses from a hidden pocket in her catsuit. "You'll want these."

"I dunno, Agent Wire," Rita says, "it's real nice to offer but they ain't really my aesthetic."

"They're smart glasses. You won't be able to navigate our corridors or operate any of our display surfaces without them."

"Oh, in that case." Rita chooses a pair and wrinkles her nose as they resize to fit her face. "Hey, I can see now!"

"The glasses also serve as night vision goggles."

"Seriously?" says Juno. "You wear dark glasses in your dark headquarters to see better? Ever considered investing in some floodlights?"

"This way," Sasha says. She strides through an archway into the shadows beyond. 

Rita and Mick exchange a look. "Boss?" Rita whispers, holding up the shard of pottery. Juno closes his fingers around it, swallowing back the nausea as his hand passes through hers, and tugs to let her know he's there. She nods to Mick, and the three of them hurry after the echoes of Sasha's boots. 

Dark Matters HQ looks just like Juno always imagined, lots of slick corridors and rushing people. From the smell of it, the water fountains only serve coffee strong enough to give a full-grown rabbit a heart attack. One agent taps rapidly at a patch of static on the wall, and Juno's curious enough to stick his head into the space occupied by their skull long enough to see that through their glasses, the gibberish resolves itself into a video feed. Clever trick, though not as well encrypted as Rita's notes.

Sasha takes a sharp turnoff into a side corridor, gesturing impatiently for the rest of them to hurry up. She leads them past a vending machine that has tasers stocked next to protein bars, through a chamber with fetters dangling from the ceiling, and at last into a chilled room. Juno knows a morgue when he sees one.

"Sasha," Mick says, "I take back what I said about wanting to work here. This place gives me the creeps."

"I'll be sure to give HR your feedback. And that's Agent W while we're here, Mick. You never know who could be listening."

"You think your coworkers are spying on you?"

"I should hope so, though the new batch of recruits don't strike me as the brightest. I heard one of them admit to being hungry the other day. Can you imagine, giving away that level of personal information?"

"Uh-"

"Never mind. Shall we get this over with?"

"Just like that?" Rita asks. "Ain't we gotta, I dunno, say a few words first?" Her lip wobbles, and Juno feels lower than dirt. 

"Trust me, better not to drag it out." Sasha presses her hand to a scanner, and one of the drawers in the wall rolls outward.

Juno's seen enough death to know there's no such thing as an attractive corpse, but he still makes a face at the ashen lump of meat he used to wear. Is that really what his haircut looks like from the side? Maybe he shouldn't have gone to that Whiskey and Whiskers stylist after all, despite the complimentary drinks. Come to think of it, "Whiskey and Whiskers" sounds more like a pet grooming place, and that would explain all the weird comments his barber had made about not biting. 

At least he hasn't been sliced and diced. He owes Sasha one for getting to his body before Green could make mincemeat of him.

Juno risks a look at his friends. Sasha stands tall and cold, Rita small and silent. Mick gapes. "He's really..." His voice breaks.

"Told you," Juno says weakly. 

"Can I get a verbal confirmation of the cadaver's identity?" Sasha asks. 

Rita sniffs and wraps an arm around Mick. "That's Mistah Steel all right. The best boss a secretary ever had."

Juno sighs. "Come on, Rita, this mess alone is enough to prove that's a lie."

"And the best friend a guy ever had," Mick says in a thick voice. "Even if he was a jerk who used too much cologne."

"And had no taste in streams," says Rita.

"And told me that training cockroaches to dance for our movie was a crime against humanity."

"And put dish soap in my dads' dishwasher," Sasha adds.

"And always created extra paperwork," Rita says, "like the time he smashed an ancient Martian statue to prove it was full of poison, only turns out the statue was worth more than our entire office, and the museum people were real steamed about it."

Sasha shakes her head. "Mick, remember the time he asked us for a threesome in class because he thought it meant working in a team of three people?"

"Guys," Juno protests, "I'm already dead, you don't have to murder me again."

Mick gives Sasha a watery smile. "Those were the good old days, huh?"

She offers him a handkerchief. "We'll talk in my office." She lets Rita reposition Juno's eye-patch and slides the drawer closed before leading them through another dizzying tangle of passages. Mick blows his nose loudly in the handkerchief as they walk, drawing derisive looks from Sasha's coworkers. Dark Matters agents probably have grief excised in the initial training program, along with their humanity and sense of humor. 

Sasha's office consists of a black stone desk, a display surface that takes up an entire wall, and a window out into the void. Sasha braces herself against the desk, her back to Rita and Mick, and squeezes her eyes shut for just a moment before smoothing all semblance of weariness away. "Very well, Mick, Rita. Once Agent L finishes with the autopsy, I'll be able to release Juno's body to you. In the meantime, I have a few questions." She pulls a blank tablet from a drawer in the desk and unclips a stylus from the side. "First, can you think of anyone who might want to do Juno harm?"

"Nobody!" says Mick. "Juno was the best friend a guy could have, and everybody loved him!"

Sasha gives him a look drier than the martinis she preferred in middle school. 

Mick slumps. "Except the kids we went to school with. And their parents. And his exes."

"Most of the HCPD too," Rita says. "And the Kanagawas, and the Triad, and about half of his former clients, and everyone he put in prison, and also that one lady in the infomercial with the singing blenders."

Sasha pinches the bridge of her nose. "So, most of Hyperion City."

"Can't blame a lady for making an impression," Juno says. 

"Fine, then. Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt Juno more than average."

"Lucius Green," says Rita. "The boss said he was gonna snoop around the big meanie's house." 

"Anyone else?"

"Ain't that enough of a lead?"

"While we are convinced Lucius Green-Loxe was involved in Juno's death, I'm afraid I won't be able to use him as a witness."

Rita crosses her arms. "This some sorta corruption thing? Because it don't matter if you let him go, Agent Wire, he ain't ever gonna know a day of peace. He might be able to escape Dark Matters but no one escapes Rita."

Sasha almost cracks a smile at that. "While I admire your enthusiasm, vengeance won't be necessary. Green's already dead."

"What," says Juno. 

"He was found floating in the bathtub of his compound's master bedroom this morning, strangled with his own wig. Since there were no cameras in the building, I need to reconstruct what happened. Do you know why Juno was planning to intrude on Green's premises?"

"Great question, Sasha," says Juno. "Why would a detective be skulking around one of the biggest criminals in Hyperion, I _ wonder._" It's stupid, but the sarcasm helps ground him. There's a part of him that's viciously glad Green died, and died painfully. But when he imagines what - or rather who - must have happened to the mobster, he feels sick.

"Of course I know why the boss was in Mistah Green's house, it's 'cause of the street sweepers drinkin' funny."

"Excuse me?"

"Well," Rita says with the relish she usually reserves for stream plots, "you know the Prince of Mars? He's a real good friend of the boss and is always callin' him up when he's worried about nasty things going down. Usually it's just stuff like his favorite mascara going off the market or his house getting foreclosed on, but this time he said one of the regulars at the bar where he works had come in the night before and didn't want a fuzzy navel."

Mick makes a face. "Gee, Rita, that seems kinda personal."

"It's a cocktail, Mick," Sasha sighs.

"And this lady ain't never changed her order before, so Mistah DiMaggio asks what's wrong, and it turns out she wants to celebrate since it's been a whole month since she had to call in a body to the HCPD!"

"Hey, that is good news!" Mick says.

"Well that's what I said, but Mistah Steel got into a real big snit, huffing and puffing about how could the bodies be gone if the crime rate ain't gone down? He told me to start poking around the security cameras-"

"You do realize that's highly illegal-"

"And it turns out that every night this van would go around pickin' up all the bodies the street sweepers woulda found otherwise! The van was registered to a Mx. Morgan Donner, which the Dark Matters database has listed as an cover identity for Mistah Green!"

"Are you saying that you hacked-" Sasha's comms buzz, cutting her off. She pales at the name on the screen and picks up, gesturing for Mick and Rita to stay quiet. "Agent Burgess. Yes, I'm back on Mars... I'm aware the situation on Tarsus is fraught at the moment, but I'm confident Agents F and Gamma can handle it until I get back. This was a personal... I'm aware it's Dark Matters policy that I'm a person on my own time, but as we're no longer offered vacation days-" A muscle jumps in her jaw. "With all due respect, sir, you didn't hire me in order to breathe down my neck. I'll admit this operation may have been spur of the moment, but my instincts were good. In addition to taking down a major organ smuggling ring, I apprehended Individual Twenty-Seven." 

Apprehended. She's not talking about Green, then, may he rest in as many pieces as his victims. Juno's stomach sinks. 

"I'm with a pair of witnesses, but - yes, I - I know, but - fine. I'll interview Twenty-Seven first. For the greater good." She cuts the call.

"That's really how you sign off?" asks Juno, incredulous. "You don't hear me ending calls with 'for whoever has the creds.'"

"Who's Twenty-Seven?" Rita asks. 

"Hey, is that their title?" Mick points a thumb at his chest. "Like on the sports channel, where the number on your jersey shows how many concussions you've had!"

"It's a designation," Sasha says, "ranking how dangerous Dark Matters considers a person to be. Those who have crossed us directly are automatically bumped to the top of the list. If you weren't quite so skilled at hiding your tracks, Rita, you'd likely be number one."

"Aww, that's so nice of you!"

Sasha's eyes are hidden by her sunglasses, but Juno gets the distinct impression she's rolling them. "Stay here while I question the suspect. I'll be back soon."

Juno follows her through a tangle of corridors winding slowly downward, his dread growing with every step. They pass fewer and fewer agents as they descend, the blue lights on the walls fading away. At the base of a tight spiral of ramp, Sasha scans her thumb, her palm, and her eye, stepping back as a series of seals unlock with bone-rattling thuds. She strides down the corridor beyond, coming to a stop at a door identical to every other near the end of the hall. She presses her hand to its gleaming surface, and the door ripples, going clear. 

Seated at a wooden table on the far side of the two-way mirror, Peter Nureyev wears a grin slick as oil. Juno's traitor heart performs a pirouette that would have made Benten proud.

A spook in a Dark Matters suit sits at the far end of the interrogation table, jabbing a finger at Nureyev. Sasha traces out a pattern on the door, and sound filters through.

"Who do you work for?" the interrogator demands.

"Lucius has been paying my bills," Nureyev says, looking up coyly through his lashes, "although I suppose I'm now a free agent."

"Why were you in Green's household?"

"Oh, that's quite a long story. Would you prefer the simple explanation, or the voyeuristic one?"

The interrogator flexes their hands like they're fighting back the urge to strangle him. "Green's guards say you're the one who got him to remove all the security cameras."

"Of course I did! Even I occasionally have a bad hair day, and I simply couldn't bear to see that recorded on tape."

Juno crosses his arms. Something's off. Nureyev's lies and deflections are as spotless as ever, but his performance is empty, uninspired. He's a ventriloquist dummy who's still chattering after the ventriloquist took a bullet between the eyes.

Sasha taps on the door, and the interrogator whips around. They visibly calm themself and step out into the hallway.

"Report."

"Little progress, Subdirector. The subject insists he's professional arm candy who's never heard of Dark Matters in his life."

"You appear flustered, Agent."

"Sorry, ma'am. The subject has proven..."

"Infuriating?" Juno suggests. "Impossible? Incapable of a straight answer? I'd say impenetrable, but based on personal experience-"

Sasha's tablet chimes. She glances at it, then does a double take, her knuckles whitening around the tablet's edges. 

"Bad news?" asks Juno, "I recognize that expression from the one time you got a B on a lab report. Breathe through your nose, Sasha, you'll get through this."

"That will be all, Agent," Sasha says. "You're relieved."

"Ma'am."

Sasha enters the cell. Juno slips in behind her before the door can click shut.

"Ah, Agent W," Nureyev says, somehow managing to lounge in his chair despite having both wrists and ankles chained down. "How gracious of you to check up on me. I've just been telling your friend there's been the most awful mix-up. I'm sure you didn't intend to imprison the grieving paramour of the deceased."

Sasha walks around the table, her steps measured and menacing, coming to a stop beside Nureyev. "You seem like kind of man who does his research. Tell me, while you were preparing to pose as a Dark Matters agent, did you ever see reference to the Vega rule?"

"I'm no stranger to role-play, but Dark Matters never came up."

"It was one of the first lessons my mentor taught me. What happens on Vega stays on Vega." Sasha draws her blaster and shoves the muzzle up against Nureyev's temple. She thumbs off the safety with an audible click. "And what happens in the interrogation room doesn't go under ethical review."

"Fucking hell, Wire, you were supposed to be one of the good cops," Juno snarls. He grabs for her blaster, but his fingers pass through it like air. 

"I was the one who convinced Juno to trust you in the first place, Glass," Sasha says, her voice tight with rage. "I know exactly who you are, and I can make the rest of your life miserable if you do not cooperate. Now tell me what you did to Juno."

Nureyev stares straight ahead. 

Sasha digs the blaster into his temple. "Now."

As though he were speaking from the bottom of a well, Nureyev says, "I got him killed."

"Yes, obviously. What else."

"I beg your pardon?"

"What else did you and that odious butcher Lucius Green do to Juno."

"Is wrongful death not enough to interest Dark Matters anymore? I don't know what crime's come to. To answer your question, Agent W, other than Lucius making a few flaccid attempts at seduction, nothing was 'done' to Juno, other than the small matter of his murder."

"Liar," Sasha hisses. "The autopsy results just came back, and the esper-70 counts in Juno's bloodstream are off the scales. If you thought we'd write that off as a fluke, Glass, you miscalculated. I knew Juno Steel. Most days he was so deep in his own dark shadow he barely noticed other people existed. There's simply no way he was the most powerful psychic the solar system's ever seen."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I figure we could all use some distraction today, so here y'all go. I am so behind on replying to comments but believe me when I say I would throw myself on a Purus Egg for each and every one of you. <3
> 
> Hang in there, everyone.

“What,” says Juno.

“Ah,” says Nureyev. “I had no idea the effects would be so long-lasting.”

“So you confess,” Sasha says, her knuckles whitening on her blaster.

“After a fashion, though you’re every bit as guilty as I am. We both sent Juno careening into the path of the Martian pill. The resulting growth was... removed... from his head several months ago while he and I were being held captive by an interested party, and I’m afraid Juno left my company too soon afterward for me to have noticed any lingering symptoms.”

“And that’s your story,” Sasha confirms.

“The truth, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll give you credit for boldness, but you’ve committed the cardinal sin of lying - overcomplication.”

“C’mon, Sasha, he didn’t even mention the part where my eye exploded while I was trying to make calamari of a deranged archaeologist.”

“Your story fails in two places. First, because esper-70 has a half-life of eight hours, and Juno’s bloodstream currently has a concentration of 420 parts per million.”

Nureyev looks at her sharply. “I beg your pardon - how many?”

“420.”

“That concentration has only been recorded once before,” the thief says, “in the University of Io’s studies on astral projection.”

“That’s right-“

In a move too fast to follow, Nureyev’s out of his seat and wrenching Sasha’s blaster away. He pulls a plasma knife out of nowhere, though it trembles in his fingers. “So some part of Juno could still be out there.”

Sasha lunges at him, feinting left and flinging him over her shoulder. She slams him to the floor, but he rolls into a crouch, stabbing for her kidneys. She dodges and stomps at his instep, growling when he dances out of the way. He slashes low, and she leaps back, sweeping her blaster off the floor and leveling it at Nureyev’s chest.

Juno’s mind goes white with panic. “Sasha, don’t!”

She pauses. After a moment that lasts an eternity, her grip on the blaster loosens. “You didn’t know a thing about this, did you.”

“No,” Nureyev says.

“You care about him.”

“Likewise, agent.”

Sasha casts a glance at the empty handcuffs at the interrogation table. “Impressive work. Those restraints are the best in the galaxy.”

“You’re too kind.”

“With talent like that, you could be anywhere. Why on earth were you playing an organ dealer’s pet?”

Nureyev smiles without humor. “It was a convenient position from which to dismantle his operation. And besides, I owed someone an eye.”

Oh. Oh, fuck. “Goddamnit, Nureyev,” Juno whispers. This is Juno’s fault. Stupid, jealous, idiot-

“-two points of failure,” Nureyev is saying. “What was the second?”

“DiMaggio was a snake oil salesman. He touted the pill to investors as a way to give people psychic ability, but it only amplified what already existed. Juno was psi-null. The pill wouldn’t have worked on him.”

“Glad to hear it, Sasha,” Juno mutters. “Silly me, imagining I could hear people’s thoughts. Amateur mistake.”

“Then we seem to have reaches an impasse,” Nureyev says. “Juno was able to perceive cards shown to me in a separate room by reading them directly from my mind. He might be an excellent detective, but such a feat would be beyond even his powers of detection without extrasensory assistance.”

“But that’s impossible,” Sasha insists, picking up her tablet. Her fingers fly over the surface. “It says right here in his records-“ She breaks off, staring at the screen.

“Yes?”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Sasha says, more to herself than to Nureyev.

Juno always heard it was rude to read over people’s shoulders. It’s probably even ruder to shove your head through their skull to read through their sunglasses, but hey, the only etiquette he ever learned was from that sailing romance stream “Fifty First Mates” Rita insisted on watching in the office.

Sprawled across Sasha’s tablet are the grey-blue text blocks of the HCPD Academy database, hefty as a Uranian junk-trawler and twice as ugly. Juno’s name is at the top of the screen, with details of his stats below, but one section toward the bottom titled “Psi” has been blacked out.

“For this to be redacted beyond my clearance…” Sasha murmurs. “Sit down, Glass. I’ll be back for you later. Try anything, and I’ll throw you in a pit so deep and dark you’ll forget your own face.”

“Come now, Agent, I’ve pulled off too many museum heists to ever forget a work of art.”

Juno rolls his eyes. Now _that_ is a Rex Glass line.

“New tune you’re singing,” Sasha says. “So you admit you’re a thief?”

“Not a thief, _the_ thief. I’m the best there is. Let me come with you.” Nureyev leans across the table, slender fingers splayed pale against its surface, his charm straining at the seams. “I can help save him.”

“You? What could you have to offer?”

“Your sunglasses, for one,” Nureyev says, holding them up. Juno does a double-take - sure enough, Sasha’s face is bare. Her hand flies up to touch the empty bridge of her nose. It’s weird to see her without them, her eyes dark and exposed. “And your blaster,” Nureyev adds, setting it on the table with an insouciant air. “And your comms, and your necklace, and-“

“You’ve made your point,” Sasha says, snatching up her things. “But I will not be bringing one of Dark Matters mortal enemies along on a reconnaissance mission. If you cooperate with our investigation, though, I’ll alert you when we’ve determined Juno’s fate.”

Nureyev chuckles. “Don’t worry, cooperation is my middle name. See, here’s the birth certificate to prove it.”

Sasha rolls her eyes at the paper he pulls out of nowhere, shoving her glasses back on her face and striding from the cell. Juno almost follows, but he hesitates. It’s not like Nureyev to give up so easily.

The thief stays braced against the table, slender and rigid as a porcelain blade. Up close, Juno can see that his eyes are bloodshot, his makeup smudged. Not nearly as bedraggled as they’d both been in the caves, but somehow far more fragile.

Juno had left him to try to keep them from both getting hurt later on. Way to go, Steel. If he’d cocked this up any worse he’d be a rooster.

_I’m sorry_, he wants to say. _I screwed up, I was a coward, I didn’t deserve you, I’m sorry_, but his tongue swells, choking out the words. He hitches his trench coat tighter and shoulders his way out of the cell, not looking back.

Juno chases Sasha back through the intestines of the ship, doing his best to avoid other agents, and groans when she turns into the hangar bay. He can only watch in impotent frustration as she buckles into a sleek black car and speeds off into the sky.

Juno slouches back to Sasha’s office, hands thrust deep in his pockets, jaw clenched. Useless detective. Can’t even ride in a car. Hell, even his idiot landlord could ride in a car.

He shoves his way through Sasha’s office door and gets hit with a wall of putrid smoke so foul he wishes Green had carved out his nasal passages. Not that Juno has a particularly discerning nose - Old Town’s aura of piss and desiccated rats will burn that out of a lady - but he couldn’t avoid this smell any easier than he could die of dehydration at the bottom of the Ascraeus Reservoir.

Juno chokes, waving a hand in front of his face, not that it does anything. “What the-“

Mick - because of course Mick Mercury would be behind this - sits cross-legged in front of his crumpled weggy board, watching the red shard avidly. Rita perches across from him, faintly green, shooting looks at the smoldering lumps on either side of the board.

Juno grabs the shard, trying to breathe through his mouth. WHAT THE FUCK, MERCURY.

Mick punches the air. “Yes! I _knew _the candles would work!”

Candles? Juno looks closer at one of the smoking gray wads and has a horrible thought. MICK. TELL ME THOSE ARENT YOUR SOCKS.

“Aw, don’t worry, Jay. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I mean, we needed something flammable, and Sasha doesn’t keep paper in her office because she’s never been that into antiques, so I thought hey! My laundromat keeps complaining about how my loads of clothes torch their machines - which isn’t my fault, they ought to buy less flammable water-“

SASHA IS GOING TO KILL YOU FOR POLLUTING HER OFFICE.

“Boss?” Rita asks unsteadily. “Are you gonna stick around if we put the socks out?”

YES.

Rita jumps to her feet and stamps on the socks until the smoke dwindles down to wisps. “Mistah Steel, you ought to be real grateful for the lengths we go to in order to help you. I ain’t smelled anything that bad since you took a nap in the dumpster out back of your office-“

BEING BEATEN UNCONSCIOUS IS NOT NAPPING-

“And Mistah Mercury’s feet are gonna get cold.” She digs around in her cardigan and pulls out a bag of coffee-flavored shrimp chips, tearing it open with a crinkle. “Where’d you go, anyway?”

Juno fills them in. It takes longer than he’d like, spelling out each word letter by letter. His grip on the shard is improving - practice, maybe - but it’s still exhausting. Rita and Mick make a good audience though, gasping in all the right places.

He’s debating how much to tell them about Nureyev when Rita’s comms chime. Rita fumbles them out and frowns at the number on the screen. She picks up. “Agent Wire? You okay?”

“You’ve hacked Dark Matters’ databases before,” Sasha says, sounding agitated, “haven’t you?”

“Uh, me? No, I’m real law-abidin’ and-“

“I need you to do it again.”

“Well why didn’t you just say so?” Rita puts the call on speaker and pulls up a screen streaming columns of glowing green numbers. “But ain’t you got access to your own organization’s files?”

“I keep getting an error code,” Sasha says, frustrated. “An 84-1007E.”

Rita taps on her screen for a moment. “This says that’s… a personal stake redaction?”

There’s a sharp inhale on the other end of the line. “Rita, I need you to pull up the basic capabilities testing records of Old Town Elementary from the years 3419-3420.”

Rita’s fingers tapping and the comm static are the only noises in the office. “Says they’re all encrypted under Project Auspice. Looking that up right - uh oh.”

Alarms blare. Juno jumps to his feet, heart pounding.

Rita’s hands are a blur over the screen. “Oh no, oh no, I can’t reach Agent Wire, they’ve cut all transmissions in and out of HQ.”

“Oh man,” Mick says, “do you think they’ll be mad at us for digging around in their files?”

“Mad at you?” drawls a familiar voice. Juno clenches his fists at the slow caw of Agent Burgess’s laughter, turning to face him as he steps from the shadows, followed by an armed guard in a faceless helmet. Figures that Sasha would have secret entrances to her office. “We aren’t mad at you, son. We’re grateful you exposed a flaw in our security.”

“Oh,” says Mick, “that’s a relief.”

“Of course, we’ll have to kill you anyway.”

“Not a relief.” Mick tries to push Rita behind him.

Juno growls. “If you so much as touch them, you goddamn kookaburra, I’ll rip your brains out your nose and boil them in your ten-gallon hat.”

“Agent Wire’s gonna be real mad if she finds out you hurt us,” Rita says, her voice trembling.

“Then it’s lucky I’m her boss, and I get final say on policy decisions.”

“I thought she said you were off-planet.”

Burgess laughs again. Juno debates whether losing his primary mode of communication is worth the satisfaction of cramming the pottery shard down the agent’s craw. “Here at Dark Matters, you learn to be everywhere and nowhere.”

Rita scoops up one of Mick’s singed socks and tosses it at him. It smacks Burgess’s chest and drops to the ground. She shrugs. “Seems like you’re here to me.”

If they ever get out of here, Juno’s giving her a raise.

Burgess’s smile tightens. “Wire can be retrained. She’s too valuable to lose. I’m afraid you two, though, suffered a tragic accident.” He tilts his head to the armed guard behind him. “Shoot them.”

“No!” Juno yells, lunging at the guard. Two shots ring out. Juno’s mind goes white with fear.

And then Agent Burgess slumps to the ground, a pair of sizzling blaster fire wounds in his back.

Juno stares at the body, uncomprehending. His desperate dive landed him close to the guard, so he has a front-row view as the man flips up his faceplate, revealing the wry eyes of Peter Nureyev. “They never do learn, do they.”

“Don’t think this means I forgive you,” Juno says, his voice strained. He’s lying, obviously. Saving Mick and Rita’s lives outweighs losing Juno’s any day.

“Agent Glass?” Rita gasps.

“The lovely Miss Rita, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance once again. And you are?”

“Mick Mercury, king of the highway!”

“Always delighted to meet fellow royalty,” Nureyev muses, plucking the sunglasses from Burgess’s slack face and buffing them on his shirt. “I presume you’re both here about Juno.”

“We’re his best friends.”

“That explains a great deal. There may yet be a way to help him, but only if we vacate the premises before the full force of Dark Matters comes crashing down on our heads.”

“And how long will that be?” Rita asks.

“Oh, twenty seconds at least. Quickly now!”

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: mild sexual content, shooting, canon-typical discussions of dying and death wishes, and canon-typical Dark Matters intimidation and human rights violations.
> 
> If you're wondering, Lucius Green is the spitting image of Jeff Goldblum.
> 
> I’m on tumblr at [ivyontheholodeck](https://ivyontheholodeck.tumblr.com) \- come say hi!


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